We recently bought a house that used to have a fence down the middle of the driveway that is shared with a council house but was removed by the previous owner and the previous tenant next door.

We emailed the council and advised them (as have the new tenants) that the fence needs to be reinstated (our back gardens are quite exposed without the fence and next door have been broken into twice since living in the house) and as it is their boundary it is up to them to resolve.

We did not receive a reply so we logged a complaint with the council as it was not being resolved and they called us the next day and advised they had arranged to meet with their tenant on Wednesday (yesterday).

We spoke with next door after the council man had been and they were told it would not be done for 2 years!!

My issue is there is no fence parting the gardens either and at the minute our garage is doing this job however we will be taking this down in the very near future (made of asbestos) so there will be nothing separating them at all. Plus we currently have a shared gateway so if we take our half down next door would not have the room to get their car on the driveway (as it is a gate for a car and then a single walk through gate on either end).

It is NOT a shared driveway as the deeds have been checked. The houses were all council when they were built in the 50's and then sold off so most of the houses down the road have the fence down the middle and then separate gateways for each driveway, ours is the only one still like this.

Please help me, I need the council to do this asap and it is their boundary. Is there anything I can do?!!

if you want to fence your land then build yourself a fence on the edge of your land - it is as simple as that.

the council obviously don't want to fence their land so they don't have a fence on the edge of their land.

before you respond with "it's in the deeds" this is where folk make the mistake.

any 'T' marks without associated wording mean diddley.any 'T' marks with the typical "must keep in good repair" (or similar) only indicate which property the original fence was supposed to be built on (it might not have been, but that is for another thread...) and the wording ceased to have any meaning the day the property was sold on to its second owner.

from what little info you've given I'd guess the fence stood on the neighbour's land - in which case you should erect yours flush to this line (ie imagine their old fence stood on their land is still there - where can you put yours?).

Katieface, as all the houses were once council owned I would guess the original fence was probably a shared structure. If it was, the boundary line would have run right down the centre of the fence so half of it would have been on your land and half on the neighbour's (council's) land.

If you decide to pay for your own fence, it is best to put it wholly on your side of the boundary line. That way, you retain full control over it. If you put it partially on your neighbour's land (even with their consent) you will be giving away some of that control, and the fence will be a shared responsibility. While it might seem appealing to have the council pay half of the maintenance costs, they don't seem keen to spend money so you would probably have a hard time getting them to stump up their share.

Best all round I think if you erected your new fence entirely on your land.

If I were in this situation I would write a polite letter to the council advising that, in view of their 2 year delay attending to this pressing security matter - mention the break ins - you wish to erect your own fence where the old one stood: is that ok? Wait and see what they come back with regarding ownership and maintenance etc